


Iron filings drawn to a magnet

by mayoho



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, Twin Peaks
Genre: Crossover, Gen, guest appearances by Jake Hix and Moxie Mallahan, timeline shmimeline, two foodies meet on a beach and are a little bit less sad for the moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 10:11:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18602419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayoho/pseuds/mayoho
Summary: Special Agent Dale Cooper is not where he belongs, but he is used to that now. He finds a rather odd man crying on a beach. They get lunch, as one does.





	Iron filings drawn to a magnet

There is a man sitting on the sand just before the point where it becomes damp. The man is wearing a suit and a hat, both a drab gray. The man is sobbing audibly over the soft woosh of the wind and the waves lapping at the shore. The body of water must be a bay; Cooper can smell the salt and seaweed but it is too calm to be an ocean. 

“Sir, are you alright?” he asks after what seems like an eternity. The man turns to look up at Cooper. Somehow his gaze is piercing and uncomfortable even though the brim of his hat casts a shadow that obscures much of his face. He sniffs and pulls out a handkerchief to dry his eyes before he stands and briskly dusts the sand from his trousers.

“I suppose I am about as alright as you are. Though I may be more demonstrative about it.” The man’s voice is dry, at odds with his earlier histrionics. He looks unassuming, almost noteworthily so, but Cooper sees that he is balanced on the balls of his feet, even in the sand, like he could handle himself in a fight but is more inclined to bolt.

“You can’t expect to win,” the man continues, his voice low and soft. “Injustice is not something that can be defeated. Any single person can only volunteer and do their small part to combat it.”

“Oh,” says Cooper. 

There is a long stretch of silence while the stranger fidgets, clearly anxious about where the conversation is to go next (or if it would be better to run). Cooper can relate. Maybe he was meant to have left after receiving the stranger’s message, but it is too late for that now. Finally, the man says, “What is your favorite food?”

“Cherry pie,” Cooper says brightly. He ignores the unexpectedness of the question resolutely.

“That is very sweet,” the man says with derision. 

Cooper shakes his head, “Paired with a cup of deep black joe, it’s perfect.”

The man’s mouth quirks up at the corners and he begins to walk away from the water’s edge. Cooper hopes the man is walking towards a diner—the kind of diner that’s off the main drag so only locals know about it. 

Cooper takes several long strides to catch up with the man—he has long legs and is moving briskly. “And what is your favorite food?”

The man pauses and tilts his head. “I am partial to ice cream, preferably homemade, and a tangy or sharp flavor like citrus or ginger, but it should still be sweet enough to clearly be intended as a dessert. Although, a simple vanilla goes best with root beer. Salmon ice cream, however, is an affront to decent society.”

“Salmon ice cream?” Cooper makes his revulsion clear on his face.

“You might be surprised what some people are willing to suffer in the name of fashion or to maintain the cover of a person who is willing to suffer in the name of fashion.”

The man steps off the beach onto an empty sidewalk. Cooper can see a crowd of buildings forming a city in the near distance, but it is not what most people would consider to be beach weather so the area near the shore has not drawn a crowd.

“Do you have somewhere to be?” the man’s tone is hard to place, somewhere between concern for Cooper’s wellbeing, and concern that something sinister that he does not wish to become entangled in is afoot.

“I don’t.”

“I suppose it’s about lunch time. You may join me if you like.”

“Thank you, I would appreciate the company,” Cooper replies, and it’s much more than true. Standing on the beach, listening to the wind and the waves and the sobbing made him feel very alone, and this is not a feeling he enjoys in the slightest. 

The man continues to walk, turning down increasingly dreary streets until he stops in front of what must be the dreariest building Cooper has ever seen. Rhetorical Building is printed in peely grayish letters on an awning colored like a grim and dirty circus tent. Cooper considers that following this stranger may have been a mistake, but he can’t imagine anyone with such specific opinions on the subject of ice cream could eat somewhere so dismal. 

He needn’t have worried—the man crosses the street heading for the one pleasant looking place in the area. Warm light puddles on the street as it spills out of the diner’s windows. Cooper nearly sobs; it’s been an indeterminately long time since he’s been anywhere this immediately pleasant. The man smiles, soft and to himself, as he holds the door open and gestures for Cooper to enter.

The inside of the diner is shabby and worn, but warm and clean. It’s exactly what Cooper most wants—to be in a place that feels cared for and loved. He breathes in and allows the feeling of this space to push the loneliness out of his soul.

“Mr. Hix, fancy seeing you here,” the stranger says to the man behind the counter.

“Always a pleasure, Mr. Snicket,” Hix sounds exasperated, like he is being made to engage in a ritual that, though harmless, he finds pointless. The stranger, Mr. Snicket, seems as if he would be a creature of habit if he allowed himself the luxury. 

“Is he with you?” Hix gestures at Cooper.

“Ah, yes,” Mr. Snicket is suddenly wrong footed although Cooper can’t imagine why.

Hix turns to Cooper, “You’ll have to excuse Snicket, here. He’s generally one for social niceties, but sometimes he gets distracted. I’m Jake Hix, chef and proprietor of this fine establishment.”

“Dale Cooper, it’s a pleasure,” Cooper shakes the hand Hix extends.

Cooper turns back to Mr. Snicket who has removed his hat and looks vaguely embarrassed. Cooper is struck by the notion that if this man is a spy, he has lucked out in the genetic lottery; he’s remarkably nondescript looking and any distinctive features he may have are blanketed over by an air of tragedy and melancholy, making him impossible to describe with any accuracy, at least at a first glance.

“Where would you like to sit?” Snicket asks. Hix shakes his head, though he’s smiling fondly, and points Cooper towards a booth in the corner before he has too much time to think about it. 

Snicket exchanges a significant glance with the woman sitting at the far end of the counter who had been transferring notes from a worn notebook to clean typed sheets with a portable typewriter. Without his extensive training in a variety of observational techniques Cooper doesn’t think he would have caught the exchange. The woman reminds him of Diane, though this seems to be an effect of the typewriter and wishful thinking. She is short, stocky, ink stained, and has no visible interest in fashion, but there is something about the equal parts furious and empathetic set of her mouth that is hauntingly familiar. But Cooper takes a seat across from Snicket and puts it from his mind.

Hix places a single menu on the table in front of Cooper and turns to look at Snicket, presumably deciding for himself what Snicket would like to eat. 

“Mr. Cooper is fond of cherry pie and black coffee,” Snicket volunteers. 

Hix nods and carefully turns the factoid over in his mind. 

Cooper finds he doesn’t want to look at the menu, wants to pretend he belongs here and doesn’t need to. “I was in the mood for breakfast,” Cooper tells Hix hesitantly.

“I can work with that,” Hix smiles and walks back behind the counter and into the kitchen.

Snicket slouches and keeps his arms in close to his body when he sits. He studies Cooper cautiously. Cooper tries to think of something to say––innocuous enough not to raise questions but less inane than ‘what is your favorite color?’

“Do you go to the beach often?” Cooper says.

“Yes. When it’s cloudy and empty, I find it’s a good place to pursue one's hobbies, or spend time alone with one's thoughts, especially if one’s thoughts are sad.”

Though Snicket speaks softly, the diner is small and quiet; the woman at the counter can hear them. She snorts and glances at Snicket, wearing a fond smile that matches Hix’s. Snicket’s eyebrows knit together for a moment, making it clear that he’s heard the woman, but he does not turn to look at her. 

“I don’t believe you’ve been to Briny Beach before,” Snicket continues, and Cooper has to wonder how he could possibly know that. 

“I hadn’t. I think I prefer the woods––Douglas Fir and the sound the wind makes as it passes through the trees. But I did spend some time in San Francisco recently, I did enjoy the bay there.”

The face Snicket makes is incomprehensible, but they are both quickly distracted by Jake Hix’s return with their food. He places a large bowl of soup with two large matzo balls, chicken, and an assortment of vegetables in front of Snicket, who smiles and immediately picks up his spoon to take a sip of the broth––he sits up properly before he does, forearms resting on the table, the man has excellent table manners. Cooper has never had matzo ball soup and is a bit jealous until he observes his own plate of breakfast food: a short stack of fluffy pancakes smothered in in cherry compote, a cup of coffee, and a tidy pile of extra crispy bacon. Cooper accepts that this is no coincidence, these people are not quite like the people back at home––Hix did not make a lucky guess, he knows how Cooper likes his bacon just by looking at him. 

“Good?” Hix askes Snicket. Snicket nods––Cooper notices how his whole face lights up when he smiles properly so his eyes don’t look sad––his mouth full of soup. “Moxie gave me her family recipe; I’m working on some improvements.”

“I’d be more than willing to suffer through your trial and error,” Snicket says in between spoonfuls of soup. 

Hix turns to Cooper, “I don’t need to ask you if you like that.” 

“This is amazing,” Cooper says with his mouth half full. Snicket makes a disgusted face, but Hix laughs before he heads back behind the counter leaving them to eat in a comfortable silence. 

Cooper methodically clears his plate, wiping up the last bit of cherry compote with the last triangle of pancake. He gazes out the window, contemplating how pleasantly full he feels when he sees her––the defensive hunch of her shoulders and the thick mane of blonde hair, it couldn’t be anyone else. He’s drawn to her like iron filings are drawn to a magnet. 

“I have somewhere to be now,” Cooper says, already halfway out of the booth. 

Snicket squeezes his hand and says, very softly and very seriously, “Good luck.”

Cooper rushes out of the diner. He needs to catch up with her before it is too late (too late for what, he doesn’t know), but he glances back through the window and the fleeting warmth behind its glass. Hix and the woman from the counter have taken seats at the table with Snicket. He looks up, meets Cooper’s eyes, and nods in a way that is both encouraging and sad.

**Author's Note:**

> I can either leave this largely without comment or write a really poorly conceived essay about how both similar and completely different these two universes are. I'm going to go with largely without comment, but, Daniel Handler is like "the truth is unknowable, but words are the closest we can get to understanding it; also I am Jewish" while David Lynch is like "words are standing between us and a greater emotional truth, and my work is permeated by a very christian sense of good and evil" but basically everything else about these universes are the same. 
> 
> Cooper has a really distinct speech pattern that I fancy I've gotten quite good at, but it was nearly impossible to keep in my head while also trying to conceptualize the Snicket!verse and editing wasn't making it any better, so it is what it is.
> 
> And I thought about making the diner kosher, but then I realized that they had to serve ice cream, and nearly all of the Jewish people I know are reform and don't keep kosher, so it seemed weird to write that.


End file.
